1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an information output apparatus and an information output method and an information output processing program which cause a browser to output a Web page loaded from, for example, a server unit into a client unit to enable the user to browse the Web page.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a recent client-server system as typified by the Internet, a wide area network (WAN), or a local area network (LAN), it is common practice to cause a browser to output a Web page loaded from a server unit into a client unit, thereby enabling the user to browse the Web page.
The Web page offered by the server unit is generally created in such a manner that the character size (or font size), color, and shape are changed according to each different piece of information dealt with in the divided areas of the page, for example, according to the attention-grabbing level, taking into account the balance of the entire page.
As a client unit, a terminal device whose display screen size differs variously, such as a personal computer (PC), a personal digital assistant (PDA), or a mobile phone, is used.
Therefore, when browsing a Web page on a relatively large display screen of a terminal device, such as a PC, the user can sufficiently read the information displayed even in a small font size. However, when browsing the Web page on a small display screen of, for example, a mobile phone, the user might not sufficiently read the information displayed in the same small font size. Conversely, the information displayed in a large font size is displayed widely on the small display screen, making it difficult to grasp the whole information.
To overcome this problem, a method of and system for improving the readability of text have been considered (e.g., Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2007-122708). In the method and system, when text is displayed on a display unit, the font size of the text is changed so as to be not smaller than the limit value of the readable font size.
With the method and system, characters smaller than the limit value of the readable font size are increased uniformly in their size until the limit value of the readable font size has been exceeded. Therefore, in a Web page where text items of various font sizes are mixed together, the correlation between the font sizes and layouts of the text items collapses, which causes the problem of impairing the balance of the entire page taken into account at the time of creating the page.